


The Silver Flames

by TheGlitchMaster



Category: The Silver Flames
Genre: Fantasy, Vampirism, lycanthropy, tw blood, tw death, tw gore, tw self harm, tw suicidal idealation, tw suicidal thoughts, tw violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22782211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGlitchMaster/pseuds/TheGlitchMaster
Summary: A small story that me and a few friends have spitballed a little bit with, we've been wanting to do something with it for a long while so I'm finally writing it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know nobody's gonna read this, this is kinda just for my own fun. I'll change the tags as I write. I probably won't have a set update schedule, but I'll try to update frequently. I have no idea how to work this website so I'll figure it out as I go.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small story that me and a few friends have spitballed a little bit with, we've been wanting to do something with it for a long while so I'm finally writing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nobody's gonna read this, this is kinda just for my own fun. I'll change the tags as I write. I probably won't have a set update schedule, but I'll try to update frequently. I have no idea how to work this website so I'll figure it out as I go.

Striker lay asleep on his bed, his face buried in the pillow while the blankets lay in a pile on the floor, thrown off during one of his nightly nightmare fits. His subconsciousness had spent the night battling off his inner demons. A large canid beast with fiery orange eyes that burned with hatred had been pursuing him through a dark forest.

A loud crash echoed from downstairs. The sound attempted to pull him into consciousness, but to no avail. Another sound tried to grab his attention, the sound of shattering glass. Striker lay in his bed, fighting the drowsiness weighing down his eyelids. He grumbled a complaint and opened his eyes, struggling to focus over the exhaustion that weighed down his mind.

The greyish white popcorn ceiling slowly came into focus above him. He lazily looked around his room, eyes still partially blurry with sleep. His room was a mess, as always. He had a fairly generic room. Scattered clothes littered the blue carpeted floor, video game posters coated the wooden walls, and a bookshelf with a few scattered books adorning its shelves in one corner. Against the side of the bookshelf was a chest of drawers with an alarm clock sitting patiently atop its surface; beside the clock sat a dusty picture frame. Striker momentarily gazed at the contents inside the frame, willing his eyes to focus. An old photo of his family resided within its unkempt tomb; His mother, Rosa, was standing to the left with her hand resting proudly atop Striker’s shoulder, next to her was his father with his baby sister swaddled in his arms. Before he could stop himself, his thoughts got swept away to past memories. He missed those days. The days when his mom was still around, when his father was a decent person, before he or his sister had ever learned of fear and pain. His mother had lost the battle to cancer not long after his sister was born. The loss devastated everyone, and consequently destroyed them.

Striker shook his head to clear away the sorrow before it sunk its claws in too deep. It was best not to think of the past, and focus on surviving the present. He glanced at the piles of clothes that lay on the floor, grabbed an orange hoodie and some shorts. They weren’t clean per say, but at least they didn’t smell as bad as some of the others. Besides, only races with a strong sense of smell, like therianthropes, would actually notice. Not that he cared either way, he didn’t have the energy to. He caught a glance at himself and stared at the husk standing before him in his full length mirror on the wall. His skin was pale and sunken in, he was severely underweight, forcing him to have the appearance of a skeleton with a coat of skin draped over it. Scars streaked across his flesh, while his eyes were sunken and framed by permanent dark circles. A frazzled pompadour sat atop his head, the hair was white around his pointed ears, dyed brown at the top of his skull and tipped with teal. To say he was having a midlife crisis when he dyed it would have been an understatement. He groggily got dressed and was about to tie the laces of his tennis shoes when another sound downstairs grabbed his attention.

A slurred shout. Followed by a high pitched scream. 

Along with more shattering glass.

He cursed at himself for not acknowledging the noise sooner and sprinted out of his room. He took a quick left to look into his sister’s room. Empty. He ran towards the stairs and nearly jumped down the whole flight in a panic. The stairs led into the kitchen where he grabbed the two granola bars that he left on the counter the night before. He shoved them into his hoodie pocket, quickly grabbed the two backpacks that were resting on the table, and raced into the front room. 

There were empty beer bottles scattered across the floor, with a mini fridge next to the couch containing more. Covering the tan carpet were shards of broken glass, glinting and reflecting distorted images from the muted tv against the far wall. Standing in front of him was his father, Adam, a half empty beer bottle in one hand, the other hand taking a slightly swollen shape with sharp claws splayed out threateningly. His legs were starting to take on a more digitigrade shape while glass punctured his shifting feet. Striker’s little sister, Lily, was cowering behind the recliner, with her dragon partner perched on her shoulder, hissing threateningly at the attacker and bearing its tiny fangs. 

Their father yelled again and slashed his claws at the recliner, tearing four large gashes into the fabric, causing the cushion to spill its cotton innards. Striker swore yet again. Every day he found a new reason to hate his lycanthropic lineage. Be it his hatred towards the monthly transformations, his fear of the lunar madness, and his father’s ability to use shifting to inflict more damage. Perhaps his biggest peve was the fact that if his family had been human, he would never have to worry about his father fully taking his werewolf form and murdering him and his sister during one of his drunken fits. 

Fear speared Striker’s heart at the thought that this day might be that day. His father was larger, stronger, and far more skilled at transforming for Striker to ever hope to win in a physical fight. Instead he was gonna have to think smart if he was going to live long enough to even get to school that day.

“HEY SHITHEAD,” Striker shouted to take his father’s attention away from his sister. The drunken man turned around baring his unnaturally sharp teeth. The bones of his face started to protrude outward as a snout threatened to break through in his rage. He yelled something Striker could only assume was threatening, since the alcohol had garbled his father’s speech. He stumbled in Striker’s direction, only for his son to duck under his swinging claws, hit his side with one of the heavy backpacks, run quickly around the side of him as he stumbled back, grabLily, and zip out the door. 

Striker dashed across the wooden bridge that connected his elevated house to the rest of the City in the Trees. Striker heard the loud sound of the door slamming behind him, followed by a muffled sob from his sister. He put an arm around his younger sibling and continued his pace until they were eventually lost in the crowd. 

The “road” on which they walked was one of many large bridges that connected the various tree houses and tree stores. That was the only way he could think to describe the city. The city was built in the largest deciduous forest on the planet. Absurdly giant trees reached their skeletal limbs hundreds upon hundreds of feet into the air. All of the buildings were built into the trees with hundreds of thousands of bridges that connected everything. Most of the bridges were made of wood, though some of the bridges that received the most traffic were made of thick concrete, metal, or stone. Trains and cars were too heavy but also banned in the city to prevent air pollution. Everyone had to walk, bike, or use an Air Uber. Everything felt unusually three dimensional. Endless wooden pathways crisscrossed overhead and underneath him. Below all of the walkways was a gigantic net used as a safeguard to catch all flightless races should they fall. Every hundred feet or so another net hung to minimize casualties. Houses of all shapes and sizes littered the trees, as well as various shops and stores. The smaller buildings could be supported by trees alone, while some larger structures required additional support, either by being built into larger trees, multiple trees, or on cliffsides.

Sunlight filtered through the canopy to dapple the emerald leaves with golden flecks. The city in and of itself was a stunning sight to any foreigner, but to Striker it was merely another place.

As Striker looked around, he took note of all of the different styles of houses. Humans and therianthropes tend to prefer houses similar to those found on the ground. Large wooden boxes built into the branches that depend on the trees for support. Usually fairly generic looking, the only unique thing about them was most had flattened roofs, overgrown with various small plants and saplings. Fae, be it the larger species of elves or the smaller species of fairies, always prefered houses built inside the trees. The only traces that displayed their inhabitants were the windows and doors carved into the trunks of the hollowed out trees. Avian races, such as sirens, harpies, or even griffins, tended to construct their own homes out of a myriad of branches, resembling more of a giant bird’s nest than a house. He glanced around, on this level most of the structures were generic looking, but as his gaze traveled upwards, he noticed less “normal houses” and more fae homes and giant “bird nests”.

His sister nervously clutched the sleeve of his hoodie tighter as a particularly tall satyr walked by, the action pulling Striker from his thoughts.

“Are you alright?” He asked carefully, not wanting his previous anger towards their father to be noticed by the younger child. She wiped her nose and held out her hand. A trickle of blood dripped down her hand with a shard of glass was embedded into her palm. The sight made Striker’s stomach lurch, if any other kid had a wound like that they’d act like they were dying, yet here was Lily, only now acknowledging it. Lily’s dragon partner, Sunny, whined and curled around her human’s neck like a scaly green scarf. Sunny had the build of an eastern dragon and was not much larger than a ferret. Her scales were a beautiful emerald green with scattered golden scales, resembling the forest around her. She had a soft pastel pink mane of flower petal-like scales around her face and down her spine with tufts of scarlet fur poking out between each petal scale, in her paws she held a small opalescent pearl.

Watching the reptile snuggle his sister in an attempt to calm her, he noticed a few of Sunny’s emerald scales were chipped and scratched. 

Striker sighed and embraced his sister in a hug. He dragged her out of the main traffic towards that bridge’s side railing, where they were less likely to be bumped. Once there, he stopped and quickly unzipped his backpack and took out a first aid kit. Opening it up, he grabbed a package of disinfecting wipes and a bandaid.

“Hold out your hand” he muttered, struggling to open the packet. Lily hesitantly held out her injured hand. Once opened, Striker took the disinfecting wipes and carefully cleaned the area around the wound. 

“We’re gonna have to take the glass out, okay?” 

His sister sniffed and hesitantly nodded, tears streaming freely down her face, from the pain or the traumatizing experience she just endured Striker couldn’t tell.

Using what little energy Striker had he forced his fingernails to shift into claws. With the precision of a surgeon he hooked his claws into the glass and slid it out of the wound. Immediately blood started pouring again from her palm, causing her to gasp and look away. Retracting his claws back into normal human nails Striker cleaned and disinfected his sister’s hand. Lily winced at the sting from the medicine, but otherwise didn’t complain. She was brave for a twelve year old, Striker mused, but then again, she had to be. Before the wound could start bleeding again Striker delicately placed a bandaid over it.  _ A wound like that should have stitches _ , he thought.

“Better?

She wiped her nose again, “Better…”

“Good, let’s go before we miss our ride again.”

Lily nodded and followed her brother to the bus stop where they waited for their ride. It didn’t take long for their designated “bus” to arrive. The bus was a large wooden trolley with intricate patterns carved into the side. It was metal and more modern looking on the inside, yet the outside had a wooden covering to uphold the kingdom’s aesthetic, since apparently that was important enough to use taxpayers money for. It was oblong in shape and could hold well over fifty occupants. It hung suspended under a thick cable that determined its destination. They opened the elaborately carved door and walked in. Only a few other students were sitting in the bus. Most of them were humans, but Striker did notice two fledge harpies sitting next to each other, three elves and a satyr. They chose a seat near the back. Once sitting down Striker pulled the two granola bars out of his hoodie and gave one to his sister. They ate in silence as more and more students climbed aboard. Loud chatter filled the silence, along with the sound of Sunny purring after receiving a small piece of granola.

Striker observed the different races that entered the bus. Another satyr, two sirens, an alkonost, a lot of humans and elves, and one werecreature. Judging off smell alone Striker could tell that one young boy had inherited his parents’ therianthropy but wasn’t old enough to have transformed yet. He felt bad for the kid, but knew he probably had a great home life. After all of the passengers entered the door closed and the bus began to move. The vehicle whizzed past miles of trees in a blur, allowing Striker to ease into a fatigued dissociative phase. 

The bus pulled up next to the long length of the wooden platform in front of the Junior High, a large structure requiring multiple large trees to support it. Striker gave his little sister one last hug and watched her run into the building. Once she disappeared behind the glass double doors he checked his phone for the time. He was going to be late yet again. Thankfully, his first hour teacher won’t get angry at him for being late. 

The walk from the junior high school to the high school was half an hour long. He put in his earbuds and started on his way. The walk was long and cold. Fall was well on its way now, with the nights lengthening, the temperatures almost freezing, and the winds intensifying. The chilly wind pierced through his hoodie and froze him to his bones. He looked up towards the sky, shivering. The sky was filled with soft fluffy clouds. The moon was still visible along the horizon, over three fourths full. The moon was waxing. He was going to have to find a safe place for Lily when the moon was full. Lily was 12, which is around the age that therianthropes started transforming. She hadn’t transformed yet, but Striker still needed to think of places for his sister to spend the night to be safe from himself and their father after they shift. 

Before long he made it to the school. His first hour class was halfway over. That will count as an absence. At this rate he might not graduate if he keeps being late, despite it still being early on in the school year. He walked inside and weaved his way through the hallways and into his history class, ignoring the looks of a few meandering students. As quietly as he could he snuck to his seat, however the sound of the door opening pulled everyone's attention away from the teacher and towards him. He avoided eye contact with his classmates. 

The room itself wasn’t too different from a normal classroom. Its brick walls were bare of any motivational posters, only having a picture or two of important historical figures. The carpet was a marbled blue purple, with the occasional fleck of green. A pair of blood red curtains drawn over the windows made the atmosphere seem darker than other teachers classrooms, though that could probably be attributed to that specific teacher’s light-sensitive species.

“Late again are we Striker?” Mr. Rockwell calmly asked not looking away from what he was writing on the whiteboard. Mr. Rockwell was his history teacher. The man was shockingly calm compared to most other teachers, Striker suspected it had something to do with his age. Mr. Rockwell was a vampire, who was a whole 354 years old. He was very tall and lanky, but he was hunched over and he walked with a wooden cane with a bat’s face carved into the top. Unlike most modern vampires who dressed like normal everyday people, Rockwell almost always wore an old-fashioned suit with a jet black cape attached to the shoulders. It could be said he had a flair for the theatrics. Mr. Rockwell was a pleasant teacher to have for first hour. He had white hair that was balding in the middle, a humorously large and pointed nose, and not the best posture. He was one of the few remaining vampires in this realm. He looked like the type of old man who'd yell grumpily at small children to get off his lawn, but he had a surprising amount of patience and wisdom behind his sharp red eyes.

“Won't happen again sir,” Striker said, equally calm, doing his best to ignore the looks of his fellow classmates as he sat next to his friend. Shawn, his best friend, was giving him a worried look. Striker just shrugged at him and looked back at the whiteboard. 

“Well one of these days you might actually mean it,” Rockwell said as he turned away from the board. On the board was a diagram of four circles, each having different squiggles in them to represent different continents.

He had been in the middle of explaining the various realms to his students. Most children were taught about the realms at a young age, and then several more times throughout their academic career. The Three Realms were three separate life-sustaining planets scattered across the galaxy that were inextricably connected through some unknown science. Each planet can access the others through various portals and rifts.

“As I'm sure you all know by now, and if you don’t you seriously need to start paying attention, this is the Earthly Realm, aka, where we are now. While it is referred to as a 'realm’ all of these places are actually planets on different corners of the galaxy.” Rockwell pointed at the other circles, then back to the first one.

“The Earthly Realm has a broad range of biomes, flora, and fauna,” 

He moved his cane to a fairly larger circle, “This is the Realm of Light, unlike our realm, this planet in the center of that solar system with two suns orbiting around it, one on each side of the planet. One sun being a red dwarf and one sun being a blue giant. Despite being aware of this realm since the beginning of time, scientists still do not know how the planet has stars orbiting around it when its mass is much lower than the suns. There is no night in that realm, just two streaks of short dusks. The biomes in this realm include deserts, savannahs, and rainforests. It is incredibly warm in this realm, almost never getting below seventy degrees fahrenheit in most places.”

He moved his cane and pointed at the smallest circle. “This is the Darkened Realm. Technically speaking this realm isn’t even a planet, it’s a moon orbiting a gas giant. This realm is suspended in a constant state of darkness, as it doesn’t belong to a solar system and has no sun. Instead it is heated by the many volcanoes that adorn its surface, its magnetic field, and whatever hot gases blow off of its host planet. Most of the flora and fauna of this realm are bioluminescent to cope with the crushing darkness. This planet has a similar climate to our own, but colder in some regions.” 

Mr. Rockwell continued teaching for the rest of the period while the students quickly took notes, rambling about the various races, flora, fauna and kingdom relations between the realms. Striker let the teacher’s voice drift into muddled sound as he zoned out. Striker didn’t bother taking notes, he’s already been taught about the various life supporting planets several times over. He rested his head on his arm and was about to doze off when he noticed a soft flashing light emanating from his phone that he had set on the corner of his desk. He looked around and slid his phone under his desk and turned it on. He had a text from Shawn.

**Where were you? You look awful have you eaten anything?**

Of course, Shawn would be worried about him, but the constant nannying was starting to peve him lately. He looked over at his friend. Shawn was an average human, with brown eyes, curly brown hair, and healthy pink skin. His eyes were full of concern, like he just watched his child get punched in the face. Striker looked back down at his phone and began typing.

**Yeah I’m alright, just slept in is all**

Another flash of light,  **You sleep? That's a funny joke**

Striker quietly snorted at his phone,  **Hardy har har shut up nerd**

He looked back up at the board. Mr. Rockwell was discussing the different cultures of the various realms and their continents and countries. Striker started writing down his notes with one hand and rubbing his temples with the other, as if he could massage his growing headache away. 

He took notes for a few moments before a new smell caught his attention. He looked around. Being a therianthrope, he had heightened senses compared to some races; he knew and recognized the scents of his different classmates and teachers, though he never really thought about it, but something was different. Something was new. He looked around and caught sight of a small girl in the back. She was arching her back and had her legs drawn up underneath her chair to minimize her size. Striker didn’t recognize her. He recognized her scent as dragonborn. He thought that was odd, since most dragonborn preferred the other tropical country of Mizun on the other side of the ocean. There was only one other dragonborn student in the class, Striker always thought of him as a jerk faced jock, using his dragon side to injure any and all who opposed him in sports. This new girl was pale, paler than him, almost ghostly, with short lime green hair, with equally green scales that were scattered across her face like freckles. She had a pair navy blue glasses resting atop her nose, and a pair of feathered wings folded tightly against her back. 

_ That's odd,  _ Striker mused to himself. If she was trying to seem small why did she have her wings out? The only dragonborns that Striker has ever seen usually kept a humanoid appearance, only shape shifting out their dragonoid features when necessary. Dragonborns had a reasonably humanoid appearance, but were able to shapeshift into a full dragon form if deemed necessary, or just about anywhere in between. He noticed a piece of tattered blue fabric wrapped around the side of her face, completely obscuring her left eye. Was it covering a scar? Was she blind in one eye? Was it for aesthetic? He’d have to ask her later, or at least consider asking her later. Around the base of her hair and at the edge of her feathers Striker noticed a sky blue tint. Was that there before? As he watched the blue tint grew larger and swirled into green. Stunned, Striker watched in awe as other various colors altered the appearance of the girls hair, feathers, and scales.

A tap on his shoulder from Shawn shook him from his thoughts. Shawn brought his hand back and texted.

**Bro its rude to stare**

Striker gave him a tired glare and typed a short response.

**Who is that?**

Before Shawn enlighten him the bell rang. Immediately a hoard of students fled the room as if it were aflame. Within seconds the new girl vanished into the crowd. Something about her bothered Striker, but he couldn’t tell what. Well, he had a guess, but it was absurd. Her scent smelt almost  _ lycanthropic _ , but that's impossible. All humanoids could become infected by the curse, but not all races could survive the shift. Races that were more “structurally diverse” such as centauroids, avian races, dragonborn, etc, were far less likely to survive a therianthropic transformation. 

_ I guess it could be possible, just not likely. _ Striker stewed in his thoughts as he wove his way through the mass of bodies between him and his destination. Perhaps he was just imagining the scent in his fatigue, the full moon was in a few days and deeply disrupting his sleep schedule. And a lack of sleep could cause all sorts of hallucinations.

Either way, he would go out of his way to keep an eye on her. Orzrac, the only other dragonborn in their grade, might try to harass her like he does to everyone else in his line of sight. It would not look good for the school, or Orzrac, if his hot-headedness got him suspended so early into the year for almost killing another student.

Striker’s next class came and went in a blur, the only thing keeping him awake was the horribly shrill voice of his English teacher droning about some supposed symbolism in they’re book that the author probably didn’t intend at all. The second bell rang and caused the students to run to the cafeteria like a swarm of rabid dogs. Striker numbly waited in line, got his tray of food, and sat at his designated table in the back corner of the room, where he waited for his gang of friends to show up.

  
  



	2. Introductions

Shawn had a lot on his mind, as he always did at this time of the month. The full moon was in a few days, not that this was an issue for him. As a human, the lunar phases meant nothing more than a change of scenery in the darkness, or a spark of imagination. But he worried about his werewolf friend. 

Shawn has known Striker his entire life, they were neighbors, not next door but in the same cul de sac. When they were little they always played at each others homes or the park by their ‘road’. When they were both seven something drastically changed, something that was the catalyst to a dark timeline of events. Striker’s mother had died from cancer. Lily was only two at the time, not old enough to have memories to hold. After that Adam, Striker’s father, prevented him and his sister from interacting with or seeing their friends. Striker’s father turned towards alcohol and drug use, which quickly got him fired from his job in the police force. The only income that family received was small amounts of cash and food stamps to keep them afloat until Adam could find another job. But he didn’t bother searching, he just continued to spend cash on more expensive drugs and alcohol, while occasionally dealing some out. Striker and Lily had no food for themselves, which led to them both drastically losing weight, and resorted to stealing cash behind their father’s back.

Striker had lost a lot of weight, enough that Shawn suspicioned he might get hospitalised should anyone actually weigh him. Shawn could feel it when he picked him up and carried him around, despite Striker being considerably taller than Shawn (Shawn being a whole 5’8” and Striker being at 6’4”). Shawn could feel it in Striker’s thinning limbs and paling flesh, he could see the exhaustion in his permanent eye bags and his constant nodding off, he could see his friend hiding all of this as best he could under oversized clothes and a cheery smile.

He worried about his friend, probably more than he should. He worried when Striker stopped eating, he worried when fresh scars appeared on his flesh, he worried when his friend went silent and stopped coming to school around the days of the full moon.

Shawn also worried about the local politics and things going on in the world, the Deciduous Kingdom was walking on eggshells around the Fire Kingdom. Everyone knew the Fire Kingdom was a short fuse, it had little resources of its own to provide the planet’s largest continent,Vaewun, in which it resides. The Coniferous and Deciduous kingdoms shipped plants and building materials all across the continent, the Great Plains provided a large percentage of the crops grown on the continent, Kingdom of Sand provided many minerals and gems, the Kingdom of Ice providing many animal products and oil. The Fire Kingdom was a dying land, its temperature being excessively hot, smog clogging the air, famine and disease ruling the smaller settlements, and it held the most dangerous fauna on the continent. The only thing making the Fire Kingdom a threat was the mass of nuclear explosives the rulers had on hand. The Fire Kingdom was decaying, and it was gonna take the resources it needed from any source, either by truce or force. In an attempt to defuse the relations with the neighboring country, the Deciduous Kingdom offered their princess’s hand in marriage to the Fire Kingdom’s prince, possibly hoping for an alliance. 

Shawn felt like any form of arranged marriage was a bad idea, especially when it involved a nuke-happy king. He especially did not want to get drafted into war because the two countries couldn’t play nice. He stewed in these thoughts while he got his lunch and maneuvered to the back corner table, weaving through dozens of tables and many, many students.

He sat across from Striker, but before he could address any of the topics that needed addressing Thomas sat down to the left of Striker. Thomas was a normal human, same as Shawn, with blonde hair and blue eyes. They shared a similar height, with Thomas being only an inch shorter. He was also a grade below them, how they started hanging out no one knew, though Shawn guessed that Striker took him under his wing when they first met a few years back. Thomas’s hair was short and always messy, which was probably a result from his adopted siblings, with a scrawny build, and a large, blue, circular pair of glasses perched atop the bridge of his freckled nose. 

Thomas slung his bag over and onto the floor with a resounding thud. The kid was in all honors classes, which meant he had approximately twice the books, so how that kid didn’t have crippling back pain, no one knew.

“What up nerds?” he asked as he sat down.

“We’re geeks, you’re the nerd, you absolute dingus.” Shawn joked back, prompting a muffled laugh from Striker as he unsuccessfully tried not to shoot the water he was drinking out his nose.

“Ah shit! My brain’s on fire!” Striker yelled and rubbed the bridge of his nose while wiping water off of his face. He received an annoyed glare from a passing teacher, but they did nothing to correct his language. The other two boys got a hearty chuckle out of that. They continued on with their playful banter for approximately half of the lunch period. The cheerful jokes washing away Shawn’s worries with ease. 

A ruckus on the other end of the cafeteria caught their attention. A clatter and some shouting. A half transformed dragonborn was roaring furiously at the smaller partially transformed dragonborn. The larger one, flashing his blazing red scales and lashing his tail looked almost like he was about to burn the whole school down.

“Wow, new record, usually Orzrac waits a few days before threatening any new kids.” Striker muttered bluntly and got up.

“Uh, where do you think you’re going?” Shawn cautiously asked, knowing full well what his friend was up to.

“Well someone’s gotta set him straight.” stated Striker casually, as if doing this wouldn’t result in him getting caught on fire.

“Just wait for Nix, she’ll take care of it, she usually gets after him.” Shawn said attempting to prevent his friend from getting fried, but it was too late, he was already off and on his way. Shawn swore under his breath and followed with Thomas close behind.

“Hey nimrod! Cool it won’t you!?” Striker shouted at the raging dragonborn with no fear for his safety whatsoever. Orzrac whipped around bearing dagger-like teeth with flames flickering out between them. He flared his frilled ears at the sides of his fully shifted reptilian face and snarled. Before Orzrac could attack he got knocked to the side by a blast of ice breath, which left a frosty coating of crystals clinging to his scales. The new girl, with a fully shifted reptilian face, flashed a pair of long, venomous looking fangs at her attacker and flared her feathered wings. Her glasses were askew on her shifted face, a small stripe of pink poked out from under the fabric around her left eye. Her scales were fiery red striped with lime green.

Orzrac slashed his claws at her exposed eye, only for her to duck last second, swipe her leg out, hitting his knees and knocking him to the ground. She set a clawed foot on his chest, holding him in place.

Before the drama could escalate a multitude of teachers were able to drag Orzrac away while the principal apologized to the girl. She insisted it was fine and gathered what was left of her lunch scattered across the floor, her dragonoid features slowly residing. Once the adults were gone she glanced around nervously and made eye contact with Striker.

“Thanks,” she offered in an attempt at conversation, her feathers shifting to predominantly lime green, with patches of rosy orange pink. Her scales started receding into her skin. Her voice was light and soft, almost like birdsong, Striker thought. Striker offered that she sit with him and his friends, and she reluctantly agreed. Everyone had settled back into their seats, now that the excitement had ended, though most of the lunch room’s gazes were on Trilight. 

“Wow dipstick here managed not to get scorched, good job,” teased Shawn while he gently punched his friend's shoulder as he sat. The girl sat nearby to the group, her dragonoid features fully disappeared.

“Look man, I would have waited for Nix except she’s busy studying for the math test.” offered Striker. Shawn was about to argue, but a voice cut him off. 

“Who’s your girlfriend~?” Thomas joked in a singsong tone.

“Oh my gods I will literally stab you,” Striker countered, grabbing his pencil and welding it threateningly while Shawn laughed.

“Trilight.” the girl muttered.

The boys quieted and looked at her. Her feathers turning fully lime green with the gazes of the three boys on her. 

Now that she was up close, they could see her in more detail. She had a line scales that ran down her arms and legs, her legs digitigrade and ended in bird-like feet. She was barefoot, as most reptilian/avian races preferred not to wear shoes, her hands and feet webbed and clawed. The hair on her head wasn't actually hair, but long lacy feathers, not unlike an emu's feathers. One of her ears had a sky-blue earring looped through it, the other ear mangled and scarred along the edge, it looked like something had torn it in half. There were three slits on either side of her neck, as she moved her head, small pink feathery bits of gills could be seen, Shawn assumed she must be water elemented, besides ice elemented.

“My name. My name is Trilight.” she said again, with slightly more courage, attempting to ease the awkwardness of being stared at. One by one, the boys introduced themselves. Upon receiving their names, Trilight seemed to relax. She fluffed out her wings and slightly straightened her posture, her feathers and scales turned a soft pastel blue with spots of equally soft yellow. 

Shawn cast a look at Striker. He seemed tense and mentally far away, his nose occasionally twitching. 

"So, uh, what did you do to make Orzrac so mad?" Thomas asked. 

Trilight tilted her head and bared her unnervingly sharp teeth in an amused grin, electric yellow lancing through her feathers. 

"He told me to stay away from him and listed off several rooms to avoid that he claimed as 'his territory' or else he'd beat the hell out of me. I told him I could probably beat him in a duel if I was no more than a kit, despite my, uh, obvious elemental disadvantage," she coughed a cloud of icy frostbreath. 

"That was bold," whispered Thomas, voice lost in awe. Nobody dared to challenge the strongest student in the school, and came out unscathed. He could think of a few students who had been hospitalized from similar fights. 

"Do you think you could actually have beaten him?" inquired Shawn. She was shorter than Orzrac by quite a bit, but he noticed the various scars that scored her skin. Those scars told stories. Those are the scars of someone with experience in fighting. He thought about asking her about them, but stopped himself short, not wanting to be intruding towards a new acquaintance.

She shrugged casually, "Maybe."

“Where are you from?” Striker cut in.

Lime green lanced through her feathers, turning to orange around the edges, “O-oh, uh, the….” a thousand expressions crossed her features in a matter of seconds before she closed her eyes and sighed, “the Darkened Realm.”

Before anyone could respond the bell rang. Everyone went back to their classes. Hours passed and eventually the bell rang for a final time to dismiss everyone for the day.

Shawn stood around the bus stop, waiting for a lift home, surveying the vicinity. He saw Thomas hop atop the back of a large russet griffin, who then leapt off the platform and glided away. He saw Trilight unfold her long wings, dive off the edge, and glide into the distance. He saw Striker walk off towards the hidden side roads. He wondered why his friend was so on edge that day, what made him so wary of the new girl. Since it was friday, he probably wouldn't see Striker until school on monday, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t. Monday night was the first night of the full moon, and Striker always got sick during then, so he’d probably stay home. His trolley home slowed to a stop in front of him.

  
  



	3. Hidden Base

Striker had picked up his sister from the jr high and together they wove their way through the hidden back streets towards a place they referred to as their “Hidden Base”. It wasn’t really hidden, just abandoned.

He shoved aside a few thin branches blocking their way. The old bridge hadn’t been used in ages, resulting in it becoming overgrown and unkept, and probably not super safe either. In the clearing was a giant concrete platform with a large building rising from it. It was an abandoned theatre, in the old part of town. The old part of town was completely desolate, save for the occasional drug dealer. The roof of the building was crowned with several young trees, searching for any leftover sunbeams the canopy above spared. The walls were cracked, and cloaked in a veil of vines. The windows cracked and murky.

Once in the clearing Lily ran off and slipped through the overgrown glass door, Sunny’s long body waving out behind her like a scaly flag, desperately trying not to get flung off by the sudden jolt of speed. Striker followed her and squeezed through the door, its hinges tangled in roots, restricting its movements. Once inside, he walked over to a battery-powered lantern hanging from the wall and switched it on. The lantern washed the darkness from the room and bathed it in a soft blue-white light, illuminating the dusty tacky carpet, empty popcorn machine and bare counters. A thud emanated from a different room, followed shortly by a pair of reptilian heads poking out from behind a corner. Upon seeing Striker both dragons loped across the room and tackled him to the ground, licking his face and uncomfortably stepping on his organs. He shrieked, half from laughter, half from discomfort. 

“Ink! Palette! Down!” He shoved the reptiles off of him and gave them each a pat. Both dragons were about the size of a large dog, one being slightly larger than the other. Both had white scales, but one had black splotches and the other had splotches of various pastel colors. They both were Western Dragons, with long needle-like teeth at the front of their jaws, a mane of shaggy fur ran down the length of their spines that ended in a lion-like tuft of fur at the tip of their tails, and a pair of jet black horns sprouted from their temples. Palette, the smaller, more colorful one, nuzzled into Striker’s side with a purr, meanwhile Ink attempted to open his backpack. 

Ages ago dragons used to hunt and kill most humanoids, only occasionally arranging alliances with them, now almost everyone had a dragon partner. The dragons had waged war against each other, almost bringing themselves to extinction. In an attempt to save their species, they formed an alliance with the various races of the world, part of this alliance were dragons giving up their eggs to be raised by the humanoid races. The eggs are given to the humanoids children, allowing them to grow up together, strengthening their bonds and in turn, strengthening the allegiance.

Striker had received his dragon egg when he was seven years old, not long after the passing of his mother, he had hidden the egg inside this abandoned theatre, to keep it safe from his father. Eventually the egg hatched and revealed two tiny kits inside. 

One of the kits had a special gift, a rare gift that only three at a time could possess. He brushed Palette’s cheek with his thumb, tracing the silver flame shaped birthmark over the dragon’s left eye. A Silver Flame was a gift of immense power bestowed only upon a few at a time. They were bestowed upon the various life-giving worlds as a gift from the gods. Three individuals, selected at random, were born with that power. The power they received varied from individual to individual; some received psychic powers, such as teleportation, mind reading, telepathy, levitation, prophesy, and telekinesis; some could manipulate the elements, controlling the weather, raising mountains, diverting rivers, moving seas; some received healing abilities to rival the greatest of mages, healing fatal injuries or curing terminal illnesses like it were a simple cold, and reviving nature; Some could manipulate the world around them, like altering gravity, changing magnetic fields, and altering various other physics. As well as various other powers.

Striker wasn’t sure what sort of powers Palette had inherited, but he knew he’d use them well. 

“Food?” inquired Ink, with a rough, serpent-like voice, unsuccessful in his attempt to open the backpack, only managing to poke a few holes in the fabric with his claws. 

“Here, I gotcha buddy,” Lily said bubbly while unzipping her brother’s backpack. Her happy expression hardened when she found nothing but a few granola bars and a box of hard mac n cheese noodles.

“You can’t expect them to eat this! You can’t even expect a person to eat this!” She chucked the box of noodles at Striker, only for Ink to grab it out of the air, his jaws crunching the box and sending an explosion of noodles in every direction.

“Okay so it's not caviar, what did you expect?” Striker responded, watching Palette gnaw on a few noodles with satisfying crunch sounds while Ink was tearing apart the box itself. Sunny hopped off Lily’s shoulder to snag some noodles for herself.

“Why don’t we go get some fast food instead?” Lily asked, her face brightening again.

“Alright genius, do you happen to have any money with you?” he said, getting up and brushing off his clothes.

A smug smile spread across Lily’s face, where she pulled two twenty dollar bills out of her pocket, “I stole them from dad’s wallet while he was asleep this morning.”

A pang of concern sparked in Striker’s heart,” Is...Is that why he attacked you this morning?”

All traces of smugness left her face and she subconsciously rubbed the bandaid on her palm, “Perhaps….”

Striker wanted to scold her, wanted to protect her, but he knew that she knew how she felt about doing such risky things. He sighed, “Alright, lets go get some food.”

Lily pumped her fists in the air, “Aw heck yeah!” Even the dragons perked up at the statement, tails wagging. Striker grabbed a scarf that he had hidden behind one of the counters and wrapped it around Palette’s ‘birthmark’ over his left eye.

They left their possessions at the theatre and made their way into town, taking the rickety back road bridges to avoid drawing attention to themselves. They stopped off at the closest fast food joint they found and ordered some real food and some soda that tasted more like TV static than actual soda. They hung out there until sundown, then made their way back to their base and went to sleep.

  
  



	4. An Uninvited Guest

Eldwin Elkhazel looked out the balcony, leaning heavily against the railing. A cold breeze wisped by, stroking her long brown hair, threatening to tangle it. A few loose petals of various soft colors drifted away as the wind stole them from her flower crown. The stars overhead faintly lit up her copper skin and reflected in her amber eyes. She was the princess of the Deciduous Kingdom, a young wood elf, no more than 63 years of age. A child by elf standards. She was physically mature, and had been since 18, but elves aren’t considered adults until they’ve lived for 100 years, for being considered an adult required both physical and mental experience and wisdom. Her parents had signed her off to marry the prince of the Fire Kingdom in less than a month's time. It was pretty safe to say she was stressed out of her mind. She didn’t even know this person, how was she expected to  _ marry _ him, expected to eventually  _ bare him young?  _ It was too much to think about, overwhelmingly so. And he was a  _ lycanthrope _ of all things. She didn’t want her future children to share that curse. With that curse the princess estimated the prince would only live to about 150 years, at most. What was she supposed to do when he died and she was left ruling a disgusting ash pile of a kingdom with her cursed offspring?

She sighed, and gazed down at what would have been her future kingdom. Thousands of lights flickered below her in the dark, shining cerulean and gold into the night, reminding her of the stars above. Some of the lights flitted from the windows of homes and other establishments, but most folk were asleep at this late hour. Most of the lights here were will-o'-the-wisps imprisoned inside lanterns, given to her family long ago by a passing fairy flock; the rest were kitsunebi,  _ foxfire _ , given to them by the kitsune that lived within the castle. 

The princess stewed in her thoughts for a fair amount of time, letting the autumn wind calm her restless soul. She took a deep breath, allowing the scents of her home to fill her lungs. Grass, damp moss, wet leaves, fresh bark, morning mist, faint pine. A new smell caught her attention, something sweet, sickeningly so, vile even, like a rotting carcass. A scrape and shuffling sound caught her attention and she flicked a leaf-shaped ear in its direction. The stench worsened. A shadow flicked at the edge of her vision, prompting her to whirl around. A hooded figure dragged itself over the railing and onto the balcony. Its movements stiff and rigid, almost robotic, like it wasn’t accustomed to its own body, like it was possessed. A horrid withering sound rasped from its decaying lungs, filling the silence between them.

“Who are you?! What are you doing here?!” Eldwin demanded, holding her nose in an attempt to ward off the horrid stench.

A dreadful gargled growl grated from its throat in response. It mechanically lifted its head, two glowing red orbs with pupils ringed in yellow glared malevolently at her through the shadows cast by its hood.

The princess tried to memorize the monster’s appearance. It’s posture was hunched, balancing on digitigrade legs, a tail snaked out behind it, jet black scales absorbing all light. A dark scaled snout poked out of the hood.

**“...Eldwin Elkhazel…”** It rasped, its voice deep and rough, like stone beaten upon stone. A short echo overlayed its speech, like a glitched recording. The creature stalked towards her, claws tapping across the wooden floor, flicking a reptilian tongue in and out, before lunging at her. Eldwin’s scream of terror was harshly interrupted as the beast sunk its rotten teeth into her windpipe, filling her lungs with blood. 

The monster released her torn throat and looked around. That child’s shriek would surely draw attention. It muttered a cantrip in its gravelly tone while slightly waving a clawed hand, casting a minor illusion spell; changing its appearance to that of a black furred, red eyed lycanthrope.

The princess’ scream alerted the guards inside to her predicament. Three ran to the balcony only to find their princess’ bloody corpse. They looked up and beheld a monstrosity. Standing on the balcony’s railing, over the body with blood slicked fangs, was the Prince of the Fire Kingdom.

  
  



	5. Foreboding

Striker couldn’t see, darkness floated in all directions as far as his weary eyes could see. He was vaguely aware of a gentle breeze ruffling his fur. He lifted his lupine snout into the air, in search of any scents the wind would whisper his way. Water? Too cold. Snow perhaps? The haze seemed to lift lightly, hinting at winter frost. He felt snow crunch under his paws and briefly wondered why he couldn’t feel it earlier, until the dream haze cleared away his thoughts. The darkness began dissipating around him, and reforming inside him. He lost his train of thought, his memories, and feelings. Carried away and held out of grasp like a kite in the wind. His sentience gone. All he knew was that he was blood, fur, and bone. Blood. Fur. And bone. He was part of the trees, part of the water, the snow, part of the creatures that lived there. He was nothing more than another piece to the giant organism that was nature. Nothing more than another gear that kept the whole picture moving. He was no more special or important than the deer in the woods, the birds singing in the trees, or the passing of wind. Blood, fur, and bone. Nameless, mindless. A wild beast.

A scent caught his attention. It was warm. He padded along through the snow, following the smell, pricking his ears in the direction of nearby birds. The beast picked up pace into a lope, excitement of the hunt flowing through its veins. The source was drawing closer. A rustling emanated from behind some bushes. The creature leaped through the bushes and onto its unsuspecting prey. 

A scream rang through the woods and echoed off the walls of the dreamscape, followed quickly by a wet snap.

The beast looked down at the corpse at its paws, the thrill of the kill still strong in its heart. It was a small human. Female, no more than twelve. Her neck snapped, deep puncture wounds sat at her temples where its fangs sank through, pink-tinted glistening bone shards poking through. Steam arose from the growing crimson puddle as its heat hit the cold snow, dying the pristine white landscape scarlet. The large full moon overhead no longer glowing with a soft white light, but burning with red hatred, casting scarlet shadows across the earth. The remaining white snow that hadn’t been dyed by the ever growing blood puddle tinted pink under the moon’s dreadful gaze.

Hunting thrill burned anew in the beast's heart. It yearned for another kill.

It looked down at its first victim. The adrenaline racing through it was sucked out of its soul instantly as recognition sparked against its features. 

Ice lumped in its stomach as realization of its actions dawned. It knew this person. It cared about this person, and now she laid dead at its feet.

Before it could fall into a sorrowful spiral a series of loud rumbles emanated from the ground. The snow shifted under its paws, before falling away completely. Sending the beast down into the black abyss, releasing a sorrowful howl on its way down.

  
  


A series of loud buzzes dragged Striker unwillingly into consciousness. He lurched forward, however his progress was abruptly stopped by a dragon laying across this chest, along with another laying across his legs. The reptile rolled down and landed on the other indignantly with a huff, the other loosing an annoyed growl. He laid back down, catching his breath and willing the adrenaline out of his system. He closed his eyes for a moment, dark images flashed across his eyelids of the nightmare, and he abruptly opened them. His head pounded, and his body was seized by aches. He glanced over at his phone, which laid on the ground next to his dusty mattress, which had been purchased at a yard sale. The mattress itself lay in the center of the stage, next to the large theatre screen. He grumbled and grabbed at his phone, fingers brushing against the plastic case a few times before finally grabbing it, which was still buzzing. He opened his texts, and saw several from Shawn.

**BRO HAVE YOU CHECKED THE NEWS??**

**Dude, it's like 6 am, haven’t you ever heard of sleeping?**

**This is more important, look.**

There was a link attached. Striker sighed and opened the link. A news site lit up his screen with a graphic image on the header of a corpse. He skimmed the article, too tired to read the whole thing. The princess of the Deciduous Kingdom was dead, murdered by the very prince she was assigned to marry. War had been declared. A bomb had gone off in the city closest to the border, as a warning to what's to come. The Prince of The Fire Kingdom refutes any claims made towards the assassination. The Fire Kingdom had begun to draft any available souls. The Deciduous Kingdom stated that there wouldn’t be a draft unless they couldn’t obtain enough volunteer soldiers.

**Oh shit dude**

His phone buzzed almost immediately. We’re totally screwed, my family is already planning on moving. The capital is gonna get nuked first and we’re not gonna be here when it happens

A hollow feeling seized Striker’s heart. Shawn was moving? He himself and all his friends might be dead soon from a nuclear war? Ice froze his veins. He didn’t need this extra stress. He thought of Shawn, and his wonderfully nice parents, he thought of Thomas and his bazare adopted family, he thought of Lily, his little sister he loved, he thought of Nix, his kind of obnoxious friend he stole homework answers off of, he even thought of the strange new girl Trilight he had acquainted. All of them gone, reduced to ash from the radiation blast. The whole giant forest in which they all lived would be destroyed. Ancient trees seemingly older than time itself. Gone. All of that blended together with the stress of the nightmare and the upcoming full moon made him feel sick, well, more sick than he already felt, with the full moon torturing his body with illness. He rolled onto his side and curled up, despite the dragons’ complaints. He took a deep breath, only now realizing his hands were shaking.

**Do you know when you’re moving?**

He waited.

**No, not yet, whenever we can sell ours, not that that’ll ever happen**

An idea hit him and a small spark of hope lit Striker’s chest.

**Take me and Lily with you**

He waited for a response, not sure if the delay was Shawn thinking or if he was busy.

**I can’t**

**Why not?**

**Besides the fact that my parents will be arrested for kidnapping?**

Striker couldn’t think of a valid argument to that. He sighed.

**Thats fair**

He felt hollow and empty, besides the growing aches and pains spreading through his bones. 

  
  


After checking on his sister, he spent the rest of the day trading texts with various friends. He had eaten a handful of crunchy uncooked noodles to tide him over for the time being. Thomas’s adopted parents were discussing moving, Nix’s family was a bit skeptical towards an all out nuclear war. He managed to get Trilight’s number from Thoams, but she simply stated that should there be war, she could leave whenever she wanted, Striker wasn’t sure what that meant, but when asked, Trilight did not elaborate.

The hours passed by at alarming speed, though to be fair he slept through most of them so he wouldn’t have to deal with the illness ailing him. 

Striker’s headache was horrid, forcing him into consciousness. His body felt weighed down and weak, his lungs rasped. It was freezing cold, though not from the external temperature. Chills seized his thinning frame. He grumbled to himself and grabbed some pain pills he’d stolen from his father and a water bottle. He downed the meds and checked his phone. Oh, it's Sunday now, he thought miserably. Did I really sleep all through Saturday? Oh well, doesn’t matter now. At least we didn’t get nuked in the night. He was vaguely aware of footsteps, alerting him to his sister’s presence, as she came and went as she pleased. Probably visiting her friends, he figured. He briefly wondered if Lily would go home to try to steal more money from their father, he tried to motivate himself to get up and make sure she wasn’t getting into trouble, but the welcoming darkness of unconsciousness beckoned him. 

  
  


The mother of all migraines brought Striker’s sleeping mind back into reality. He slowly opened his eyes, wary of the pain the light would cause. He shivered, but he felt warmer than before. He looked down and saw Ink and Palette sprawled over his torso, lending him their body heat. Next to his phone on the ground was a dimmed lantern and a pink stuffed cat to keep him company. Striker smiled, Lily must’ve left it. He gently moved the snoring reptiles on top of him, took a few more pain pills, wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and walked out of his designated auditorium and into the theatre’s foyer.

“Morning sleepyhead, I almost thought you were dead.” Lily called from the other side of the foyer. She laid reclined on one of the dusty cushioned benches, looking at her phone. 

“Morning to you too turdface,” Striker groggily responded. Lily’s face was smug, but concern glinted from behind her eyes. She patted the cushion next to her and he sat down. She leaned against his shoulder, browsing memes on her phone. Striker’s vision was too hazy to make out the words or images.

“What time is it?” He muttered, yawning halfway through the sentence. 

Lily squinted at the corner of her screen, “About 8:30 ish, well, 8:36 pm to be exact.”

“Cool, I’ve still got some time to chill then.”

The concern in her eyes deepened and she looked regretful, “Striker...It's Monday.”

Lightning shot through his body as he lurched up,causing Lily to fall over, “You’re shitting me right?” She looked away from him. “Right??” Had he actually slept that long?

“I didn’t want to wake you… It's the most peaceful I’ve seen you sleep in awhile.” Lily whispered, barely audible, still avoiding his gaze. 

He swore under his breath and booked it back into his room/auditorium. He could yell at her later. Does she have even the slightest idea how much danger she’s putting herself in? I have to I have to go! He grabbed a steel chain that he had hidden under a seat. In one jump he leaped onto the stage and grabbed his backpack, stuffed the chain inside, and bolted out the glass doors into the night. Typing a text to Shawn as he ran.


	6. First Night of the Full Moon

He raced through the undergrowth, heart hammering in his chest, threatening to burst free. The sun was setting, and with it all of his hope and courage. 

Striker sped through the massive forest behind his neighborhood, as fast as his cramping legs could carry him, backpack bouncing with each step. All he needed was to get far enough to no longer be a threat to his family and friends. 

Lilly had stayed at the theatre, safe and out of harm's way.

It was getting dark now. The cold breeze brushed his skin and left icy trails in its wake, the cold easing his migraine a tad. A lightning bolt of pain shot through his body and knocked him to the ground in a shuddering heap. The pain flared white hot in his veins before subsiding a few moments later. Striker laid there for a moment, and considered giving into the pain. But he couldn't, not just yet. 

He pushed through the migraine clouding his actions and continued running. After several minutes he managed to find a sturdy tree far enough away. He threw off his backpack and grabbed the chain inside. He looped one end of the chain around the tree, and the other around his left wrist. 

He collapsed against the tree with a sigh of relief. He should be safe. Everyone should be safe. He fumbled in his backpack and pulled out his phone. Hands shaking as he sent a text to Shawn. __

**I'm here. And safe. Where are you?**

Striker leaned against the tree in silence, holding back a scream as a new wave of pain hit him. His phone buzzed.

**_Home. In the yard. Are you okay? Has it started yet?_ **

As soon as his hands stopped shaking enough to type he replied.

**Not yet, but close.**

A moment passed. Another buzz.

__ **You'll do great buddy, I believe in you. Just hang in there for me**

Striker let out an amused huff, and was about to reply when a wave of nausea hit him so hard he immediately doubled over and puked. He leaned back against the tree, already exhausted, though the night had only just begun. The moon began climbing the horizon. The light broke through the canopy to illuminate the agonized child. Everywhere the light touched felt like pins and needles, only to then feel like flames melting his flesh from his bones. He screamed. 

Then it started.

What felt like getting punched in the gut 50 times doubled Striker over. He sat on his knees and clutched his stomach, the cold of the ground on his forehead providing the only relief available. Before long he felt a sharp pang stab into the flesh of his torso, he moved his hand to reveal long, talon-like claws emerging from his fingertips. 

With trembling fingers he carefully picked up his phone and typed. 

**I g tg, itts starti ng**

He placed the phone back in his bag and hurled it out of the chains reach.

A loud wet snap echoed from his spine and sent him to the ground gasping for air. His entire body felt as if it were burning alive. The pain was horrendous, completely fogging his mind while all he could do was scream. His shoulders arched to give him a more hunched appearance. He could feel his ears lengthen and a tingling sensation spread across his skin as it sprouted fur. He felt a slight tingling at the base of his spine as a tail emerged.

He threw himself against the tree, he couldn't suffer if he knocked himself unconscious, right? Something cracked in his shoulder making him fall to his knees with a pained cry. Just as quickly as it happened, his shoulder cracked again, this time relocating itself. 

One by one Striker’s ribs snapped and expanded, leaving him with no breathing room in his clothes. He cursed at himself for his stupidity and shakily removed his hoodie and shirt before tossing them to the side. 

An excruciating pain exploded from his feet, he quickly tried to undo the laces on his shoes, but to no avail due to his claws, the harder he tried the tighter the knots became. He screamed again and a loud snap sounded from each foot. If he couldn't remove his shoes fast enough they would surely maim his feet. He tried tugging them off to no success. He howled in agony before completely tearing his shoes apart with his claws. As soon as the fabric was gone the heel and arch of his foot lengthened exponentially, the ball of his feet having already taken on a lupine appearance, unfortunately, both ankles were swollen and starting to bruise.

The air got sucked out of his lungs and his rib cage jutted forward into a more barrel-like shape. He gasped for breath, desperately clawing at his throat and leaving bloody gashes in their wake. A sickening crunch came from his face as his jaws pushed themselves forward, tears streaming down his face, silent screams escaping his battered throat. His gums bled and screamed in pain as his teeth sharpened and lengthened.

His body grew in size by over two feet. The chain wrapped around his wrist became tighter and tighter until it dug into the flesh, leaving crimson pouring in its wake. 

He collapsed on the ground, gasping for air, the pain slowly subsiding. He lay there for a while, trying to remember who he was. A shroud of darkness began clouding his mind. He felt angry, his body exhausted and weak. Striker shook his head. 

_ No no no no no remember who you are, think about Lily, think about Shawn, remember them remember them remember...remember...who?.....who...what was i…? Who….what……..? _

He clutched his temples and curled in on himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Darkness enshrouded his mind. Words lost their meaning as his memories faded. Was he supposed to remember something? Striker couldn’t recall. Anger slowly began flooding his veins, washing out any and all other thoughts and emotions, the darkness had full control. 

He stood up on his hind legs and howled his rage to the moon. He had tried to remember who he was, had desperately tried to remember his family and friends. But the beast had taken over. Striker was no longer home.

His senses magnified. Hundreds of distinguishable scents reached his nose. Sounds originating from miles around caused his ears to flick around in their directions. His eyes slowly opened, revealing two glowing orange spheres.

The werewolf could smell prey on the passing air currents. A nest of sleeping birds, a deer by a stream, a fox den with kits inside. The beast tried to lunge away into the trees after the smells, but only succeeding I dislocating his wrist and driving the metal farther into his flesh, reopening the scar. He howled with rage. His hatred knowing no bounds. 

He lunged at the tree, attempted climbing it, tried breaking the chain, but nothing could free it from it's trap. For hours this lasted, searching for an escape, for anything to break free. Pacing the base of the tree so much he had created a trail of pressed peat. 

Each failed attempt at freedom increased the agonizing pain that throbbed in his left wrist, forcing a roar of pain and anger to escape his throat. His wrist nothing more than a mangled mess of blood and bone. Striker had lost more blood than he would like to have admitted. He wore his body to exhaustion before eventually passing out and losing consciousness. Constellations soared overhead as the hours passed.

  
  
  


Striker lied down on the soft dirt beneath the tree, a horrible pounding migraine lulling him to consciousness. A soft, yet cold wind played with his hair, tossing and tangling it. He slowly opened his eyes, lights and blurry figures danced in his vision. He felt nauseous. Striker tried to sit up only for the screaming pain in his wrist to bring him back down with a thud. He cried out in pain and hyperventilated, his mind now clouded by a blinding pain. Slowly he reopened his eyes and looked at his injuries. His entire body was covered in bruises, while deep cuts ran along the length of his arms and neck. 

Then he saw his wrist, and keeled over and puked. It was a mess, to put it nicely. He must have cut an artery for there to be that much blood. A large quantity of grass around him was stained crimson, it didn’t help that the wound was still bleeding freely. The chains were so deep inside his wrist they must have been embedded in the bone. Striker unclipped the chain so it could be removed. He grabbed a stick and held it between his teeth. Striker started to hyperventilate and had to take a few moments and deep breaths to gather his resolve. He squeezed his eyes shut and yanked it out like an oversized bandaid. He screamed. And screamed. And screamed, until his throat was worn raw. There was no way he didn't just wake everyone in his neighborhood a few miles away. Blood cascaded from the wound in a pulsating rhythm. He dropped the bloodied chain and gagged, having no more bile he could barf up. He put the chain in the backpack and grabbed his tattered shoes. 

He put his shirt on, and barely got the remains of his shoes over his swollen and bruised ankles. He could worry about duct taping them later. He shakily got to his feet, only for white hot pain to explode from each ankle and bring him back down. Fortunately, he came prepared, and dug through his bag for some bandages. He tightly wrapped each foot, and even tighter so his wrist. It didn’t take long for the wound to start bleeding through the bandage, but it would have to do. The swelling in his ankles as well as the bandages were too much for his tattered shoes so he threw them into his backpack as well. More crimson was beginning to seep through his bandages on his arm. He grabbed his hoodie and fashioned a makeshift sling from it, holding the wound above his heart.

He limped for what felt like hours before finally making it back into the city. He took a few hidden side roads to avoid drawing attention on his way home. Lightheaded from the blood loss he stumbled inside. His father was unconscious on the couch, in human form, but with many, many bottles of alcohol beside him. It'll be awhile before he wakes. 

Striker limped to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He downed a few of his father’s painkillers and set to cleaning the wound, filling the sink with water and arranging various disinfectants. He held his breath and shoves his hand in the icy water, choking back a scream and dyeing the white sink crimson. Now that the caked blood is out of the way he can see the true damage. The flesh was tattered and torn all the way around, muscle and fat rose and fell in small bumps under the mangled skin, small specs of white gleaming through the crimson. Striker hurries and pours peroxide on it before he can chicken out. This time he does let loose a scream. He collapsed to his knees and trembled while the medicine did it's work. He washes it again and wraps it as best he can. He stumbled up the stairs and collapsed on his bed.  _ One night down, two to go. This month is gonna be a dosey _ , he thought dizzily before slipping into the welcoming dark of unconsciousness.


	7. Melancholy

Shawn paced the small length of grass that made up his yard, eventually coming to lean against the wooden railing surrounding the yard, gaze traveling through the trees and finally resting upon the forest floor far below. Or what he figured was the forest floor, the only light provided to him filtered down through the branches from the moon and stars. He hoped he’d be able to see Striker through the myriad of branches, but he knew it was in vain. Striker would be long out of town by now. In the woods. By himself. Shawn dearly wished he could be there with him. He knew how his lycanthropic friend hated the full moons, not many things scared Striker anymore, but the curse of his bloodline froze him to his very core. Shawn wished he could go comfort him, but knew if he did he might end up injured, cursed, or worse, dead.

He shuddered, the thought of his best friend unintentionally killing him deeply disturbing him. If Striker was born to literally any other family neither of them would have to worry. When therianthropes first start shifting, they are given classes to learn how to control themselves, and special medications to help with the pain, but Striker didn’t have either of those. He never told his dad when he first started transforming, and when his father found out, he didn’t care, or bothered getting him either of those things, despite being required by law. So his friend had to live three nights a month huddled away in the wilderness to protect those he cared about. 

He shifted his gaze towards the sky, towards the beautiful silver sphere that held power over so many. A very small slice off the edge prevented it from being 100% full. He opened an app on his phone to check the exact percentage. 97% exactly. That's as full as it needed to be to force a transformation. The three days a month when the moon was over 97% when every poor cursed soul on the globe got plucked from their homes and thrown into hell. Shawn didn’t know what all happened during and after the shift, he just knew that when those three nights were over, his best friend looked more dead than alive. 

A buzz from his phone caught his attention. 

I'm here. And safe. Where are you? Striker had texted.

Shawn quickly typed back. 

Home. In the yard. Are you okay? Has it started yet?

A concerningly long pause, then a buzz. 

Not yet, but close.

Shawn tried to think of something encouraging or comforting to say to his friend before all hell broke loose.

You'll do great buddy, I believe in you. Just hang in there for me

An even longer pause.

I g tg, itts starti ng

A pang of pity settled in Shawn’s heart. He could see his parents walking around their front room through the illuminated window. He sighed. He knew he should go inside, play some video games and go to bed, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It felt so wrong. Shawn had done all he could to help Striker, he kept him as much company as possible via texting, he had tried to give him hope and encouragement, but it didn’t feel like enough. He felt he should be there physically for his friend, to hug and talk him through his permanent hell. 

He leaned against the railing, separating his small yard from a several hundred foot fall, listening to any sounds the night might whisper. A low, mournful howl sounded from a neighboring house. Striker’s dad must have finished shifting, that means Striker should hopefully be finishing up his. It was a slight comfort to know his friend might not be in physical pain anymore. 

It was eerily silent now. The only sound was the wind blowing icy trails through the rustling leaves. No nocturnal birdsong, no buzzing insects, nothing. There wasn’t even a single firefly floating through the air. A faint rustle in a nearby tree snagged his attention. He peered through the darkened greenery. Perhaps his dragon partner had snuck out to try to startle him out of his melancholy. 

“Ragnarok! It’s not funny! Show yourself!” He shouted, keeping his eyes on the branches. His eyes locked with a pair of glowing, red-ringed yellow eyes through the foliage. Before he could say anything, a large grey biped figure burst from the branches, broad leathered wings blocking out all moonlight and casting him in shadow, taloned hands and fangs gleaming in the darkness. It tackled him off the railing and together they plunged into the abyss. 

Wind whipped past him, tangling his curled hair, freezing his skin, and stinging his eyes, blinding him to his attacker. He heard screams faintly above him, his mothers, as well as the keen of his dragon partner. The two tumbled through the air, the creature tearing Shawn’s flesh to ribbons with its wicked claws. Shawn screamed and punched at the monster. His attacker’s response to his futile attempt at self defense was to sink its fangs into the flesh of his shoulder. He tried to scream, but felt his whole body go numb. He could see crimson streaks of his own flying blood as the creature tore into him, but he couldn’t feel it. Everything seemed to fade away as he neared unconsciousness. He saw the distant shadow of his dragon plunging through the air towards him. His body went limp, his thoughts sluggish, as everything went dark and faded to nothing.


	8. An Evening Flight

Trilight flapped her wings, gaining altitude, while dodging the branches of the canopy. She caught glimpses of various avian races and their nest-like homes as she weaved through the branches. Only avian races lived this far off the ground, the appearance of bridges becoming few and far inbetween, generally only being used by children who had yet grown in their flight feathers. Dozens upon dozens of nest-like homes were weaved into the trees. Sunlight glittered through the yellowing leaves, casting everything in a golden light. 

_ There _ , she thought, aiming for a small opening between the branches. As she closed in on the gap she threw her arms forward and folded her wings against her body. She exploded through the canopy into open air, leaves and twigs flying out behind her. Trilight flared her currently soft blue wings open and pumped them to gain altitude, viewing the sea of green and gold underneath her. The unfiltered light of the setting sun was harsh on her eyes, causing her to contract her pupils until they were just small reptilian slits.

The higher she flew, the more the air was thinning, breathing was becoming difficult, yet she pushed onwards. Eventually her mind began to fog.  _ This should be high enough. _ She folded her wings and began to plummeted towards the treetops down below. She twisted her body and spiraled downwards at alarming speeds. Tears streaked through the air around her from the wind stinging her eyes. She blinked her third eyelid continuously, though it didn’t really help much. The canopy closed in rapidly. Trilight flared open her wings at the last moment, the sudden decrease in speed jaring her system, pulled up and glided above the branches. She keened in glee, twirling up through the air, shaping the wind with her wings to her advantage, neon yellow striping through her feathers. The air here was different from the ocean thermals she was used to riding at home.  _ Or what was my home, I can’t go back there now _ , she thought with a twang of sorrow, subconsciously rubbing a series of teeth marked shaped scars on her wrist. She shook her head to clear out her thoughts and refocused on the wind around her.

Oh how she missed flying. During the day she was stuck in school, with her wings perpetually folded. Sure she could shift her wings in and not have to deal with the muscle cramps and stiffness, but having her wings out felt more natural, and safe. It felt better knowing she could use her wings as an escape, should she ever need to. She wanted to get an education, so she might possibly live out a normal life, though she doubted she would be that lucky. 

She thought back to the last few days of school. She had continued hanging out with the group of kids she met her first day. She hadn’t seen the lycan kid since that first day, though she had a pretty solid idea why he hadn’t been there the last two days. And the human kid with the curly hair, he hadn’t been at school that morning either. She wondered where they both were. She had gotten excited about the prospect of having new friends, though perhaps it was wishful thinking. Well, they did have her phone number, so maybe it wasn’t too late to make friends. Trilight could understand the absence of the lycan, she too didn’t really feel up to school during that time of the month, but she didn’t want to get kicked out for missing days. Though she wasn’t sure where the human kid had gone. She thought back to her first day there, how they had both stood up for her to protect her from the other dragonborn. She felt bad about lying to them, about why he attacked her. Though she guessed it wasn’t a complete lie, he did warn her to stay away from him and his classes, and she had egged on the fight, declaring that she could beat them. But the real source of conflict came from the dragonborn discovering her secret. Well, one of many. Trilight knew she couldn’t keep the knowledge of her curse hidden, not with so many races sharing the school, it was only a matter of time before someone with a heightened sense of smell would pick up on the scent of lycanthropy she carried.

She just didn’t expect it to happen on the first day, or for that insufferable red lizard to attack her. She only egged him on in jest. Perhaps he suspected that she could try to infect him as well. Trilight snorted, she had nothing to gain by spreading the curse, and she had absolutely no intention of getting arrested for trying. Besides, dragonborn get infected by therianthropy almost as frequently as other humanoids, they just didn’t survive the shift. Well, almost never, there were only two dragonborn in all of the realms that had survived the shift, and she was one of them. Or at least, she only knew of two. She guessed it was possible that others had, just not probable. She glided lazily over the vast expanse of green, lost in thought.

She yawned, her night of no sleep catching up to her. She should probably take a nap, she wouldn’t be getting anymore sleep that night, nor the night after. Trilight searched for another gap in the branches and dove through them, back into the scattered gold light of the canopy. She wove through the large city, descending through layer upon layer of civilization until she came to the level in which she lived on. She glided above the suspended streets until her house appeared in the distance. Though technically it wasn’t her house, but her friend’s in which she was staying. 

  
  



	9. Second Night of the Full Moon

Stabbing hunger pangs brought Striker into consciousness midday. He groggily rubbed his eyes then quickly recoiled and hissed in pain at the pressure on his mangled wrist.  _ Oh yeah, forgot about that _ , he mused. He carefully moved his hand, testing the limitations of his injury. It had a little movement, but it was rather unpleasant, to put it lightly. Striker carefully unwrapped the wound, the fabric catching on the dried blood. It was still disgusting and gnarled, but his lycanthropic healing had allowed it to scab throughout the day, though the skin around it was red and infected. He felt around his arms and neck, fully taking in the damage of the previous night. He cringed as his fingers drifted over the blood-crusted scabs running down his neck, he’d have to wear a scarf at school to hide those. It might have to take a few years for those scars to fade, if they faded at all that is. He subconsciously rubbed his cheeks, feeling the sharpened teeth that still felt too large for his mouth, despite being in human form. He felt rather unwell, seized by body aches and probably a low fever.

Another stab of pain from his midsection snapped him out of it, making him regret not eating any actual meals for the last few days. Striker numbly slid his legs off the bed and got up. He drew in a sharp hiss as pain throbbed his ankles, but didn’t bring him down as it had earlier. They remained bruised and swollen, though less than they were before. He hated the injuries he received during the lunar madness, but if he didn’t have his accelerated healing they would surely have killed him by now. He changed into some mostly clean clothes, a dull blue hoodie and a pair of black shorts, and hobbled through the hallway and down the stairs, pausing by a door to his left to listen for his father. Faint sounds of the tv could be heard through the wooden door, though he didn’t risk opening the door to find out. 

Striker entered the kitchen and crossed the room to the stove, the cold of the checker patterned tile relieving some of his pain, and began cooking. He didn’t know a lot about making food, but the internet had taught him enough to survive. 

After setting up a pot of rice he left it to cook while he meandered the house. He slowly peeked through the nearest doorway into the front room, searching for any threats in the vicinity. His dad was sitting on the couch, the room darkened safe for the harsh flashing lights of the tv. On reflex, Striker flinched out of sight of the front room, heart beating hard. Upon hearing no threats, he risked another peek. His dad was on the couch, head lolling to the side and an empty can hanging loosely in his grip.

_ Oh, good. He’s out,  _ Mused Striker. He silently sneaked into the room, avoiding the mess of trash on the floor. The room stank  _ heavily _ of alcohol, underneath that the sharp, sweet stench of weed. He suddenly wondered why no drug dogs have ever pulled him over at school if his clothes absorbed any of the smell. He carefully poked his father’s arm and jumped back. No reaction. Striker pricked his ears, his father completely silent and limp. The only sound was his slow, wheezing breathing. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. 7pm. How long was he out? How long did it take him to get home? Walking home felt like hours but surely it couldn’t have been that long. That didn’t leave him much time to leave before he shifted. He’d have to speed pack so he could get out of town in time. Striker snuck out of the room before anything could go wrong.

He polished off the rice he cooked as quickly as he could and started repacking his supplies for the night. 

First Aid Kit? Check. Stolen pain meds? Check. Chain? Bloodied, but check. Phone? Che-

“Whatcha doin?”

Striker yelped in surprise, and instinctively grabbed the baseball bat by his bed and whirled around to meet the intruder.

The small intruder threw her hands in the air, “Woah! Chill! It's only me!” Lily almost shouted, not taking her eyes off the bat.

He sighed and dropped the bat, tensing up again realizing where Lily was.

“What’re you doing here?! Do you have any idea what time it is?! You need to get out of here before me or dad accidentally tears you apart!” His gaze drew distant and he muttered, “ _ I  _ need to get out of here before dad tears  _ me _ apart…”

“It’ll be fiiiine, besides dad’s totally passed out right now,” She casually shrugged her shoulders. Sunny, who perched on her shoulders nodded in agreement.

“He won’t be when he shifts!!” Striker said, not quite shouting but close, panic filling him. His heart beat hard and his breath caught in his throat. If his dad didn’t kill him Lily’s overconfidence might. A stab of pain in his organs brought him to his knees gasping. He had to leave, he didn’t have much time. 

Lily put a hand on his shoulder, attempting to be calming. 

“Why aren’t you back at the base?!” Striker demanded, the pain starting to diminish. 

Lily looked away, “You didn’t come back after last night and I got worried. I wouldn’t have come here if you would’ve just texted me back that you were alright.” She looked back, studying his face, trailing down the gashes along his neck to his mangled wrist. She gasped and grabbed his hand, more roughly than he’d prefer.

“What did you DO?!” She flipped his hand over inspecting the injury. “Lookit all that red! This thing’s infected! This’ll be the death of you if you don’t get it checked out. I’ll call an ambulance!” Lily reached into her jacket pocket for her phone. Striker grabbed her wrist.

“You can’t! Not right now! You need to leave! You can swear me out later when neither of us are on the verge of death.” Striker was out of breath, his throat closing up on him and limbs starting to go numb. He might not have enough time to find a safe place in the woods to shift, but at least he could get his sister out of here before he did. 

Lily carefully bent his wrist, testing the movement, “No. I’m not going anywhere until You get a doctor to look at that wrist. It's all swollen and bloody and gross! Is it broken?” 

He withdrew his hand with a hiss, “Probably. You’re avoiding the topic. Go.”

Lily put her hands on her hips, “ _ Clearly  _ you can’t be trusted to take care of yourself during the full moons. So I’m gonna stay here with you to keep you from bleeding out. Just chillax you’ll be fine, and quit acting like you're in one of those awful werewolf movies. You’re not going to eat anyone or anything”

Striker facepalmed, he was gonna need to place his words better if he wanted her to leave, “Look, I get you don’t want me getting hurt, trust me I don’t want to get hurt either, but I’m trying to protect  _ you _ from getting hurt. You’ve never shifted so you don’t know what it’s like, it's very _ not _ fun, and I won’t be behind the wheel when it's over and I can’t guarantee that you’ll be safe. Got i-” He crumpled to the ground in pain. His skin felt like it was on fire, while claws started to emerge from his fingers. Shit. Was he too late? He started to hyperventilate, both out of pain and panic. Maybe, just maybe, he could hold back the shift long enough for Lily to run.

Lily took an uncertain step back. She couldn’t hear her dad downstairs, which was a plus, but her brother looked like he was in so much pain. He definitely needed a doctor. She placed a hand on her brother’s back in an attempt to comfort him. He flinched at her touch, face twisted in a grimace of pain. Why was he so freaked out? He should basically be a big ol dog when it was over? That didn’t seem worthy of such a freak out. Sunny made a concerned noise and sniffed his injuries. She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

Why was she still here? Why was she touching him? She had to go while he was still sane. He curled up in a ball while his bones snapped and changed, thankful to not have to worry about rebreaking his ankles since he had left his shoes off. Striker could hear her voice, but couldn’t make out any words, everything sounded slurred and underwater. Was she talking to him? Why was she still here? Oh gosh he never wanted her to see him like this. His vision blurred out. He couldn’t hold back the shift much longer, every passing second increasing his agony tenfold. 

He cried out, he didn’t mean to, but he did. Lily patted his back again in a comforting motion. Black clouds edged his vision and he started to get light headed from holding the shift back. Suddenly the pain lifted and his vision washed out black, all feeling left his body, he felt his arms give way underneath him. And then nothing. 

Striker’s body collapsed underneath Lily’s hand. She nudged him, his body completely ragdolled. The sound of multiple bones snapping all at once caused her to flinch back. With Striker no longer conscious there was nothing holding the shift back.

  
  



	10. Possibly Another Cursed

The first thing Shawn perceived was a faint, slow beeping, followed by the heavy scent of blood and disinfectant. He slowly opened eyes, burry shapes and figures weaved in and out of his vision. His mind felt heavy and fogged, it was difficult keeping his eyes open. One of the shapes seemed to move towards him and speak, though he couldn't make out any of it. He closed his heavy eyelids and succumbed to the void. 

An unperceivable amount of time later, Shawn opened his eyes again. Everything was blurry, but his mind felt clearer than it did before. In an attempt to clear his vision, he went to rub his eyes, only for a small sharp pain in the back of his right hand to stop him. Shawn looked at his hand, and saw a small plastic tube partially embedded in his skin, with the outside taped to his flesh to keep it in place; both arms were wrapped in bandages, a slight red coloring seeped through the white. On the back of his hand around the plastic tube were several dark bruises, as if whoever put it in had difficulty finding a proper vein. A thin tube travelled from the plastic to an IV hanging from an IV stand next to the bed he was in. The bag attached to the tube was half full of transparent liquid, with a steady drip into the tube. Shawn’s stomach twisted at the sight of the IV, and frantically looked around the room. To the left he saw a slidable table with a bouquet and a few get well cards adorning its surface,a couple chairs, a window with the curtains drawn over it, casting the room in shadow, and a vital signs monitor. To his right was an Iv stand, with the transparent fluid hanging from one hook, and a deep crimson fluid hanging from the neighboring hook. Shawn could feel his pulse quicken and his panic skyrocket, his elevated pulse making the machine to his side beep faster. He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.

After a few minutes of taking deep relaxing breaths he heard footsteps enter the room. He glanced up nervously at the visitor. The visitor was a man in all white with a clipboard in his hands, seemingly on autopilot the man lifted his clipboard and began writing down Shawn’s vitals, when the man noticed Shawn was awake he paused before saying, “Ah, I didn’t realize you were awake, that would explain the rise in vitals, do you know where you are?”

Shawn let loose the breath he didn’t realize he was holding and looked around the room one more time, “A hospital.”

The man smiled in a way Shawn could tell was forced to prevent himself from panicking over being hospitalized, “Can you remember why you're here?”

Shawn opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short, realizing that he didn’t remember. He closed his eyes and looked back into the past. He remembered being in his yard, he remembered texting Striker on the full moon, he remembered- oh gods was Striker okay? Did his shift go okay? Was he hurt? He didn’t know where his phone was to text him, he needed to check up on him.

The man grabbed his shoulder and gently shook him, “You alright kid? You’re mumbling to yourself, could you repeat that? I didn’t catch it.”

Shawn shook his head to clear his thoughts, “I was checking in on a friend when...when…” Flashes of dark leathered wings and fangs and talons filled his memory, A stab of adrenaline sucked the breath out of his lungs. “...I was attacked.”

“That's right, can you recall what attacked you?” The man inquired, removing his hand from his shoulder.

The flashbacks flickered in front of his eyes again, but he couldn’t make out many details. “Something grey,” Now that he was more awake and more aware of all that was going on, he wondered who was in the room with him, he didn’t recognise the stranger, he was wearing all white, so he assumed he was a doctor or nurse.

The man's face went grave, “You don’t recall, do you?”

Shawn shook his head. 

The man took a deep breath, sighed, and sat down in one of the chairs next to the bed, “What you were attacked by was a vampire. We don’t know who, the police are looking for the suspect as we speak. You received several injuries, Some scrapes, gashes, bruises, and a bite wound.” He paused, searching Shawn’s face for a reaction. 

Shawn was struck dumb. He didn’t know how to feel or react, he was attacked by a vampire, was he going to be a vampire now? The gravity of the situation not quite hitting him fully. It didn’t feel real, being in the hospital didn’t feel real. Maybe, just maybe, he was having a nightmare. The longer he spent awake the more he began to feel various aches and pains throughout his body.  _ That _ definitely felt real. He studied the bandages on his arms, cringing at the growing red stains. His chest ached, he lifted the collar of his hospital gown and saw his chest and shoulder were also thickly wrapped in bandages.

“How long have I been here?” At his question the man looked surprised, not expecting that to be his first question. 

“A few days,” He lifted his checkerboard and flipped a page, “four days to be exact.”

His mind wandered wildly for a few moments before circling back around to Striker. 

“Where’s my phone?! It's an emergency I need to speak to my friend and see if he’s okay!” Shawn blurted.

The man seemed taken aback, “You almost died and you're worried about your friend? What sort of situation could possibly be more important than what you just survived?”

“My friend, he’s a… a…” He hesitated, realizing he could get Striker’s family in legal trouble for Striker’s lack of shifting training and medication, but he really needed to know if he was okay. Some full moons Striker came through nearly unscathed, other times Shawn had to personally bandage up some serious injuries that his friend received, or make sure he survived severe illnesses that sometimes followed.

He took a deep breath, hoping Striker wouldn’t be mad for him sharing some information, “He’s a lycanthrope, and he’s, uhm,  _ kinda _ scared of shifting? I need to make sure he’s not hurt.” 

The nurse/doctor’s face lit with understanding immediately, “We got two lycanthropic patients in just the night after you, one’s in for some injuries, the others in a coma. Both are in stable condition.” He added at Shawn’s concerned expression, “Striker and Adam  Lowell, are either of those who you’re thinking of?” 

Shawn had to choke back the beginnings of a sob. His friend was  _ hospitalized?  _ His friend’s  _ dad _ was  _ hospitalized?  _ What on earth happened while he was out? It felt like it was his fault for not being able to protect Striker. Grief, fear, guilt, and concern wracked his body, causing him to shake. The man’s hand was back on his shoulder in an instant. 

“Hey hey it's okay, they’re okay. If you’d like I can talk to the doctor about letting you visit him, after you’ve healed a bit more, of course.” He searched Shawn’s face, who only nodded, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Before you do anything, we should probably call your parents to let them know you’re awake now.” The man said, removing his hand and leaving the room.

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: implied self harm

Almost a week had passed, and the doctor had finally agreed to let Shawn see his friend. According to the nurse, Striker and his sister had been injured during the full moon, while their dad was in a drug overdose induced coma. Thankfully, they were all in stable condition.

Shawn himself had felt his health improve as the days went on, but at the price of his appearance. Due to the vampirism now flowing freely through his veins, he’s noticed his skin greying, his slowing pulse, the dropping of his eternal temperature, and the development of several cankers as a result of the budding fangs. He could feel his senses improving over time. 

It felt...strange. Shawn had expected this “curse” to be similar to Striker’s. Scary, painful, traumatic even, but he barely felt different from before the incident, save for the few times he caught a glance at himself in the mirror and startled himself. His injuries were sore, but not painful, and were healing nicely. He was still pretty freaked out about the initial attack, but was mostly unbothered by the onset of vampirism. 

He’d been up and walking for a while now, Shawn was pretty sure the only reason the doctors still kept him hospitalized was because of his new curse. Supposedly the final step of becoming a vamp was the stopping and restarting of the heart, which Shawn suspected was what the doctors were waiting for.

He slipped on a blue sweater his mother brought him and some jeans, utterly refusing to wear hospital garments to check on Striker. He stole a quick glance towards the mirror, noting the spreading red tint in his once brown eyes and the darkening of his curly hair, before turning and leaving the room. He asked a polite lady at that floor's desk for the location of his friend's room. He wrote down the floor number and room on his arm with a pen from the desk, thanked the lady, and went on his way. 

Two floors up and down the hall was the room number written on Shawn’s wrist, the thin blue curtain pulled across, blocking the occupants from view. Suddenly feeling self conscious, he took a few hesitant steps back, slowly took a deep breath, and knocked on the doorframe outside the curtain.

A second of silence, then, “...Hello?” An unmistakable, yet groggy voice resonated from the other side of the curtain.

“Striker? Its me Shawn, I’ve come to check on you,” A loud  _ CLACK _ of plastic hitting the floor and a muffled swear could be heard before a distressed, “Come on in bro,”

Shawn slowly pulled back the curtain, revealing a few plates strewed across the floor in an undignified heap in a room not too unlike his own. Striker sat on the edge of his bed, poorly hiding a grimace. They both in unison let out a small concerned gasp upon seeing each other. 

Where the heavy bandages didn’t cover, Striker’s skin was a palette of various colored bruises. Both ankles were in casts, as was his left wrist, an I.V. in each wrist, and large crusted scabs stretching across his throat and chest. It was weird seeing him in a hospital gown, it was the first time in years he’d seen his friend without wearing a hoodie, and now his scars were in full display.

“What happened to you?!” Both shouted in unison.

“You first,” Shawn insisted.

“No! You know what happened to me, what the hell happened to you!?” he argued. Shawn shrugged casually.

“Just had a little run in with a vampire, nothing exciting. Now answer me.”

“A little run in? A LITTLE run in!? Your arms are all torn up! What happened to your shoulder?!”

“What happened to yours!?” Shawn demanded, eyes trailing the old and fresh scars scoring his body. Striker scratched the back of his head.

“It was just a rough full moon, I’ve survived worse…” He trailed off while Shawn grabbed his uninjured hand and flipped it over, examining his wrist. Dozens upon dozens of horizontal scars trailed down his wrist and up his arm, some fresh pink, others white with age, He glanced at the other arm, which had just as many similar scars. He trailed his thumb over the raised skin.

“...Oh, Striker,” Shawn whispered, dread and guilt settling in his stomach, tears pricking the corners of his vision, “What’re these?” Striker tensed up at the contact, tore his arm away from him and held them against his chest.

“Don’t worry about it, just old scars… It’s fine-” He was cut off by Shawn giving him a firm hug, then grabbing his uninjured arm again and examining the old injuries. The thin, symmetrical lines ended at the elbow, where thicker, claw mark scars continued up the arm and blended into the fresh scabbing wounds at the neck. 

“Explain, please,” He said quietly. The lycanthrope looked away, but didn’t take his arm back.

“...I don’t know how to deal with things, that's the best I’ve got…” Striker mumbled.

“The claw marks?” his friend asked, making him grimace as he relived the memories. 

“Rough shifts.” Shawn hummed thoughtfully, then gestured at a series of scars shaped like a bite mark.

“And these?”

“Didn’t get out of the house in time before I changed and got in a scuff with dad.” 

Shawn set his arm down, gaze distant. All this time his friend’s been suffering so much and he had no idea, and now he’s injured again. He knows reasonably that none of this was his fault, but he felt responsible nonetheless.

“What happened that night? Those nights?” he asked gently, sitting next to him on the hospital bed. Striker rubbed his casted wrist subconsciously. 

“...Forgot to take my shoes off beforehand, which took out my ankles, panicked mid-shift and accidentally tore up my neck, had the chain too tight and took out my wrist, it's fine. Accidentally scratched up Lily’s arm the following night… but thankfully she’s okay, staying with our aunts.” Shawn gave him a dumbfounded expression.

“A chain? You just chained yourself up in the woods all night?”

Striker furrowed his brow, “Yeah? What else am I supposed to do?”

“Fuckin. Vibe in the woods away from town! Use one of those dedicated werewolf...ranch...things? That you can just go shift in a fenced in acre or whatever and vibe there! You’re hurting yourself this way!” He threw his arms into the air overdramatically, “Why not just do that? There's like five of them in this city alone! We had a field trip to one in the third grade!” Shawn sighed and buried his head in his hands.

The werewolf sighed and fell over onto the unmade bed, grabbing his face with his uninjured hand and throwing the other in the air, flinching slightly at the tug of the I.V., “I don’t know man, I don’t know. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of shifting, of being the wolf, of not being me, of hurting my loved ones, of hurting you and Lily and my dragons and everyone else. I’m just scared and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m always afraid and in pain and that's just my life. It's just one day after another after another and I’m sick of it,” Shawn slowly looked over at his friend on the bed, whose wet eyes were locked to the ceiling “...What am I doing with my life…?” 

He looked away, “I’m sorry Striker, I should’ve been taking better care of you. I should’ve been there for you when you shift. I should’ve been there for you the days before and after to help you out. I should’ve tried smuggling some lycan drugs from the store for you. Instead I’m out here throwing hands with vampires like an idiot.”

Striker threw himself forward, momentarily hissing in pain at the weight on his wrist, dragging a fearful look from his friend, “Woah woah woah dude this is all on me, I’m the idiot here don’t blame yourself… Also what the frick are you doing throwing hands with vamps?” 

Shawn startled a bit at the question, then began unconsciously scratching the scabs on his arms, “I was just hanging out outside and this feral vamp tackled me from the trees and to the ground and I woke up here, it all happened kinda fast.” He received a hushed ‘woah’ in response, “Hey uh, I have a question, well… more of a request actually,”

“Yeah?” 

“Take me with your next full moon, ya know, to make sure you don’t accidentally sever your hand.”

Striker barked out a rough laugh, “Ha! Not happening. You’re already on your way to being a vampire, you don’t need to add werewolf on top of that.”

“No no no no no not what I meant. I’ve been doing some reading on my phone since I’ve been here, ya know since all of the tv channels suck, and I found out animals can’t get infected by lycanthropy, only the sapient races. So when I get a hang of the whole vamp thing I can turn into a bat and vibe with you, lycanthropy free.” 

Striker gave him a strange look, perplexed, worried, and with a hint of something else. Hope perhaps? He sat up, but held his gaze away from Shawn, caught in a psychological battle with himself.

“That's...probably not the best idea.”

Shawn casually, yet carefully, threw an arm around his shoulder in an attempt to diffuse the tension, “And why not? I could always bring the whole friend group, I mean, most of them can shapeshift into something curseproof. We could stick Tom in a tree out of reach,”

Striker leaned slightly into the contact and laughed, “Ha, yeah I don’t need Nix having anymore blackmail on me thanks. And besides, I don’t want you to see that, Thomas isn’t curse proof, and I can climb well _ now _ , I’d be way faster as the wolf, and Trilight, if she’s still around, wouldn’t want to see a kid she barely knows shift.”

The vamp paused for a second, realization hitting him, “You don’t know do you?”

He furrowed his brows, “Know what?”

“Trilight’s also a werewolf”

Striker went still, eyes clouding over.

Making a mental note of his friend’s reaction, he continued excitedly, “She could totally help you with all of that! Surely she would know how to cope and handle that stuff!”

The lycan cringed, “Yeah I would really rather not have people see me during all of that,” 

“Even if it meant you wouldn’t have to worry about hurting others?”

He made a noise of acknowledgement, thinking it over.

He took the lycan’s hands in his own, “It’ll be okay, please trust me with this. You’re not okay, and I want to help you... If you’ll let me,” he added.

Striker’s shoulders slumped and he sighed, “Alright, just for you though,”

A sigh of relief escaped Shawn and he embraced his friend, “Thank you,”

Striker let out a loose breath and returned the embrace, sagging into the contact. He could feel Shawn effortlessly hold him up as his thoughts battled one another, the soft beat of the other’s gradually slowing heart relaxing him. 

Until it stopped.


End file.
